“Busted valve!” cried Stevenson as he jumped down. “Thought we’d never fix it.”
Lescault saw that the boyish face looked old, ages old, that his hands were moving nervously, his whole body tense with repressed eagerness.
“You’ve lost the lead,” a tireman shouted. “Giron’s a minute ahead!”
Lescault could have killed the speaker. The effect of his words was obvious. Stevenson’s nervousness increased.
“As bad as that!” he exclaimed. “Hurry it up, boys! Only two more laps—just enough to catch Giron.”
Swinging into the car, he threw on the engine, drowning the warning that Lescault was shouting, and rushed away. The grand stand was in an uproar as he swept past, but Stevenson did not hear. He heard only the words of the tireman, and kept repeating them:
“Giron’s a minute ahead. Giron’s a minute ahead.”
He now opened his engine to the limit, and driving faster than he had ever driven before, burst into the “S” turn and reeled round it on two wheels. Past Massapequa he whirled, dirt and oil flying in a trembling wall of brown. Downhill, over bridges, he rushed, the wind shrieking in his ears. Into the straight stretch of the Parkway he burst, the “Ninety” gathering momentum on the smooth road, faster and faster, until the front wheels, bending to the sonorous rhythm of the engine, jumped up and down in a weird dance.
Drawn by William H. Foster